india travel diary 2007 to 2008

There's a huge tank here, just behind the main street.  Brahmins line its edges, performing complex rituals with fire, fruit, incense and oil.  Dozens of young brahmin boys wash and swim, and in the same tank women wash clothes, scrubbing hard with square blocks of soap, slapping the clothes into the water.

At dinner at a cheap dhaba we meet a Swiss guy who is complaining that Indians think he is rich, although in his country he is poor.  He is the guide for the blind man he is with.  He is a conspiracy theorist, and he hates Jews.  When his dinner arrives he puts his crispy, cone shaped dosa on his blind friend's head, like a hat.

Jeeps full of black clad men are arriving all the time.  They are crammed into the vehicles, and spill out onto the road, chanting, praying, cooking and cleaning themselves.  Then they cram back into the jeeps, or get on the roof, and go to sleep.  It turns out they are on the Sabarimala pilgrimage.  This is an extensive 3 month tour of temples around South India, almost exclusive to men, which entails prayer, abstinence from intoxicants in any form.  It culminates in a pilgrimage to the Ayyappa Temple on the Kerala/Tamil Nadu border.  The Sabarimala website says the devotee

"...must treat all women like his mother and strictly follow celibacy. He must not oil his body or his hair and must always carry a tulsi leaf with him to keep away evil thoughts."